No, you won't find it on the map.
Serendipity and the invisible hand of fate conspired to steer me to the end of the road, to the furthest point south in Costa Rica, to a tiny community of a hundred persons: Punta Banco. Replete with a tiny, turquoise church, an even smaller school, a soccer pitch, four supermercados (each one smaller than the other) and a stretch of beach to which only a picture postcard could do justice. Palm trees caress the entire length of beach, their huge fronds swaying in the Pacific breeze, many of them hanging over at impossible angles, laden with coconuts waiting for a stronger wind or a machete's swipe, so that their nectar can be savoured. And behind the palms is the jungle, splendorous in colour thanks to the rainy season having just ended. The multi-hued birds of paradise and other flowers and orchids stand out brilliantly against their lush, green background of ferns and palms, mangoes and star fruit trees.
This is home for my friend, Gabriel, for several months each winter, and now it is mine, if only for two weeks.
Yesterday, we rose at 5am to the screeching of howler monkeys. Our bare necessities cabinas are surrounded by verdant jungle on three sides and these aptly named monkeys get a head start on the roosters to greet the new day with their howling. The local botanist claims that their noisy cacophony is how they mark their territory each dawn (and dusk) but my own theory differs: why would supposedly intelligent primates have to so frequently remind all the neighbouring intelligent primates of this same fact twice a day, every day? Surely they are simply welcoming the new day with a primate singalong . My alarm was set for 5:30am but that was a moot point a half hour earlier. It was no longer possible to sleep. We ate a home-cooked breakfast of eggs and rice and beans and headed out along the beach before 6am. There is something odd about a long hike which starts out on a beach. It seems as though I am casually walking along the beach as we have all done countless times. The waves are crashing repeatedly to the right. We can see the fisher birds squawking as they hover, searching for their breakfast just above those same waves which churn the fish about and bring them closer to the surface and to the birds' hungry beaks. When the locals see the birds feasting like this they scramble for their own fishing gear and join in. Farther overhead we see an impressive flock of pelicans flying in formation, although presently in a single undulating line, not in the expected V-formation. Even though we are 200 feet below them, we can see that they are very large and graceful, too, slowly flapping their huge wings to stay aloft. We are walking south so the sun is not yet shining on us, it has just risen and is blocked by the tall cliffs or mountainsides that often end on the beach, each one covered in palms, ferns and other tropical growth.
After an hour we cross a river emptying into the sea and then turn left and climb up away from the beach and into the jungle. It is still very early in the morning, the sun has yet to rise much above the horizon but the heat of the day and humidity have now begun to become oppressive, especially since we are climbing steeply and perspiring. The trails we follow are known only to the indigenous who use them routinely to transport provisions up to their farms by horseback and to carry down the fruits of their labour to market. Our guide, Moe, is well known to the community as is every farmer and farmer's son for miles around. After several hours of uphill progress through the mountains, the farms and the jungle we have arrived at a small, unremarkable stone monument which denotes the border with Panama. We step into Panama and sit ourselves down on a log for a well-deserved Panamanian lunch!
The trickle of cold water that claims to be my shower is no match for the creek behind the house. During the rainy season it earns its name of Rio Nicaragua but now the waterfall that feeds it is hardly the torrent it was just one month ago. Bathing in the pool of fresh, cool, water at its base has become one of life's quotidian pleasures, cooling me down now so I can sleep comfortably later as I wash off the perspiration and salt of the day's activites. I can see parrots flying overhead in pairs, some with tails eighteen inches long -- macaws, apparently -- wings that seemingly change colour with each flap, first blue then green and then red, as their melodic songs drift down to me below. A four-foot long sloth lazily inches past on the riverbank, in no hurry at all to arrive at its destination, likely the branches and leaves of the mango tree that they adore to munch on. During yesterday's bath it was an anteater that ambled by, tomorrow I am hoping to see a jaguar as I bathe; it is the largest creature to inhabit these jungles.
And so life goes on at the end of the road, hiking, biking, horseback riding, deep sea fishing, panning for gold, a class at the nearby yoga farm, the market in the nearest village, surfing and swimming at sunset -- the ocean is so warm and the waves are big!
The locals use a salutation here in the way the hippies of the '60s used to say 'Peace' or Spock's 'Live long and prosper' or even Yoda's 'May the force be with you.'
It is 'Pura Vida!' -- you could translate it as you want ("pure life?") depending if you lean more towards the hippies or the Yoda lifestyle. I think it's high time we had a more interesting salutation at home to replace the tired 'See you' or 'ciao' or 'salut' -- your thoughts...?
Barry
